


Fifth Chance

by ktula



Series: a slow unraveling [1]
Category: Crash Pad (2017), Logan Lucky (2017)
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Depression, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Security Blanket, Sibling Bonding, kylux adjacent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-22
Updated: 2019-03-22
Packaged: 2019-11-28 00:36:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18201101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ktula/pseuds/ktula
Summary: Whatever it is that the redhead wants, Clyde’s not his answer.(Unless, as it turns out, Clyde is answering the wrong questions.)





	Fifth Chance

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, hello, I maed you a present, it's a clydeland.
> 
> There's a couple more detailed content notes at the end, re: the tags.

It’s five am, and Clyde Logan is awake for no reason. It’s too late to go back to sleep, and it’s too early for bacon, and the inside of his brain feels like a bomb that’s been rigged to explode at some unspecified time.

(He doesn’t know how long the fuse is.)

He sits on his couch, and stares at the walls of his trailer. Listens to everything tick.

After an hour, he straps on his arm, and gets started with his day.

*

“I don’t suppose you smoke pot,” the stranger says.

Clyde glances over at him. The redhead looks woefully out of place at the fairground—he’s wearing a vest over a long-sleeved shirt, his hair is the kind of hair that Mellie refers to as having “room for improvement,” and even if he hadn’t been remarkable in any other way, his accent sets him apart immediately. His cheeks are pinked from the sun. He must be passing through, on his way to something better. Maybe he’s part of a tour group. They’re never had them up this way before, but there’s a first time for everything.

“Please tell me you do,” the redhead continues hopefully. “Or does your majestic and stoic silence mean I’m barking down the wrong fence here?”

“…you’ll want the Bang brothers,” Clyde says, once he realizes that the redhead is making direct eye contact with him, and actually seems to expect an answer.

The redhead tilts his head to the side, and scrunches his nose adorably. “I’ll want the what?” His cheeks tint a little pink. “I mean, is it that obvious? That, uh, you know. Things have been a little, er, slow in that department over the last little bit, though it’s not for lack of trying, it’s just I swear that everyone here is laughing at me except for you, you’re just staring, which is totally fine, absolutely fine, it’s just that I actually don’t know who you’re referring to when you say—”

Clyde gestures. “Over back there a ways,” he says. He hates interrupting, but he also doesn’t think the redhead is approaching anything even remotely like the end of a sentence anytime soon.

(Whatever it is that he wants, Clyde’s not his answer.)

“What?”

“The Bang brothers,” Clyde repeats slowly, in case his accent is giving the stranger difficulties. “Fish and Sam. They’re back there a ways. Can’t miss ‘em. They’ll have what you’re after.”

The redhead is staring at Clyde, blinking.

It’s probably the arm. It’s usually the arm.

Clyde takes pity on him, looks over his shoulder and scans the people behind him until—there she is. He never has to gesture or nothing, just needs to look at Mellie the right way, and she’s detaching herself from whatever conversation she’s in and heading on over.

“Yeah?” she says, snapping her gum and tossing her hair.

“You show this guy where the Bang brothers are?”

“Yeah,” Mellie drawls, looking the redhead up and down. “You buying or selling?”

“Uh, well, you see, my regular stash got soaked in that last downpour, I was caught outside and there was a structural integrity issue with the baggie that I was carrying, and before you know it, everything was soaking wet—”

The last Clyde sees of the redhead, Mellie is steering him through the crowd, one hand on the small of his back, fingers bridged on the polyester of his vest, and that’s that, then.

(He yells something back over his shoulder as Mellie marches him away—possibly his own name? The place he’s from?—but Clyde is a bit caught up staring at the hole right under the rear pocket of the stranger’s shorts, and doesn’t quite catch it.)

*

Clyde figures that’s about it—the cute redhead was passing through, people do that all the time—and he tries not to think any more about it. Except they stop at the convenience store on the way to drop Sadie back at Bobbie Jo’s place, and Clyde loses track of her briefly, and by the time he realizes she’s slipped off, he can already hear her lecturing somebody back by the candy bars.

He can’t hear much coming from the other side of her lecture about the different types of sugar, neither. Clyde sighs, leaves his bag of chips on the counter, and ambles back to detour Sadie, encourage her to maybe leave some gaps in the conversation for other people to respond.

“Hey,” he says, as he rounds the corner—and then stops, because the person Sadie’s been lecturing at is the same redhead he’d sent off to the Bang brothers the other week, crouched down on the floor of the convenience store, squinting at the candy bar that Sadie’s holding out to him.

“—and so _this_ is corn sugar, and _this_ is corn sugar, and I’m not sure what the exact process for makin’ dextrose is, but it’s also corn sugar, and so it’s in a lot of places. Did you know that Iowa produces the most corn in the entire United States?”

“I did not know that,” the redhead marvels.

“Did you know that?” Sadie asks, spinning neatly and turning the full force of her charm right back on Clyde.

“…I did not,” Clyde allows.

“There,” Sadie says. “Now you do.” She beams up at him. “Time to go?”

The redhead stands, brushes off the worn knees on his pants. “I guess it’s probably time for me to get going as well, I…oh, hey, it’s you.” He gives Clyde a crooked smile. “We met the other week! I yelled my name back at you, though I don’t always enunciate that well when I’m flustered, and I have a tendency to forget regular social niceties when I’m chatting with someone—”

Clyde doesn’t need to get any closer to the stranger to realize that he clearly had no problem finding the Bang brothers, because his eyes are bloodshot, he’s holding an unopened package of Visine in his hand, and the tip of a rather worn-out baggie is poking out the side of one of his pockets. He’s wearing jeans today, and a button-up shirt with birds on it.

“—must assume my manners are horrible, everyone is so polite out here, it’s been the strangest cultural shift, just trying to decipher everyone’s accents and all the local patois and the—”

Clyde nods.

“I’m Sadie Logan,” Sadie interrupts, sticking her hand out and smiling her blindingly white pageant smile.

The redhead grins, not fazed by the interruption in the slightest. “I’m Stensland,” he says, enthusiastically shaking her hand. He looks up at Clyde, extends his hand again. “Stensland,” he repeats.

“Clyde Logan,” Clyde says, and watches Stensland’s face twitch a moment before settling back into the optimistic look that Clyde is starting to think of as his natural expression. “I assume you found what you were looking for,” he adds. “When we last talked. Mellie steered you right?”

“She _did_ ,” Stensland says. “And I have to admit, it was a much better experience than I expected, though I don’t think I’d let them cook for me again, I hadn’t really expected to get fed when I went over there? Back where I’m from, we mostly just—well, I guess I did hang out with Lyle a fair bit, that’s how we ended up living together in the first place, I’m not entirely certain that some of the stuff they fed me was food, entirely, though it was delicious—obviously it was food, just things I’d never had before, broadening my horizons, and all that—sorry, I’m blathering and holding you up.”

“’S fine,” Clyde says. “I’d, uh. Like to stay and chat, actually, it’s just…we do need to get going. We’re, uh. On a schedule.”

“Ah,” Stensland says, nodding and blinking before bringing up one of his hands and scrubbing at one bloodshot eye. “Yeah, of course. Of course.”

(Clyde has a moment of wishing that they’d met—at the bar or something, instead, though there’s no good that comes out of wishing that. It’s not like a conversation in a different venue would change anything. Not really.)

“I’m going to pay for this with my allowance,” Sadie announces. “I’ll meet you at the car?”

“Sure thing,” Clyde says.

She merrily skips away, and Clyde has every intention of following her, except that’s when Stensland leans in close, actually puts his hand on Clyde’s right bicep.

Clyde blinks at him.

Stensland—and isn’t that an odd name if he’s ever heard one—has his mouth open like he’s trying to say something, except there’s nothing coming out, and Clyde is just getting around to re-evaluating how high Stensland might be at this particular point in time when Stensland’s hand twitches on Clyde’s arm, and he blurts out a whole string of words all at once.

“Hey, wow, you’re a big guy, sorry, I was just wanting to tell you how fantastic I think it is that you’re raising your daughter to be so assertive—women are the future and girls run the world as our queen bee Béyonce says, and I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that you’re raising her right and I realize that’s a horribly invasive thing for a near stranger to be telling you especially when you’re big enough to belt me into next Sunday if you were ever inclined to do such a thing, which I’m kind of hoping that you aren’t, because I would rather get to know you instead, you’ve got that certain jeuh nuh say quaah if you’ll pardon my horrific French, I learned it from cable. Sorry, I should let you go when you’ve got somewhere to be,” he finishes, but he doesn’t remove his hand from Clyde’s elbow, and Clyde doesn’t really want him to either, even though it’s making it hard for him to focus on speaking, especially when Stensland keeps _looking_ at him.

“She’s not my daughter,” Clyde manages, finally.

Stensland squints blearily at him. “She’s not?”

“Sadie’s not my daughter,” Clyde repeats, and then, because he feels as though he’s done something to derail Stensland, he adds, “it was good to see you again.”

“Right,” Stensland says, blinking rapidly. “Good, yeah, that’s great.”

“Sorry for the confusion,” Clyde apologizes. “I never meant—”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Stensland says. “I assumed, I shouldn’t have assumed. I’m still working on my communication skills.”

“She’s my niece,” Clyde clarifies. “My brother’s kid.” He glances out the window of the convenience store. “Sorry, I should really get going, I don’t want to hold them up.”

“Right,” Stensland says, letting go of Clyde’s elbow, and taking a step back. He holds the Visine up, grins. “I should pay for this anyway. I’ll see you around!”

“Sure,” Clyde says. “Yeah, I’m...sure.”

They’re halfway to Lynchburg when Clyde realizes that he left his chips on the counter of the convenience store, and he never got Stensland’s number neither. He sighs.

“Something the matter?” Jimmy asks.

“Nah,” Clyde says.

*

“Had a weird encounter the other day,” Jimmy says casually.

Clyde grunts, dips his brush back in the blue paint— _Ocean Front_ , and it’s bright and chipper and everything Clyde’s not particularly feeling right now—and then reaches back up to the edge by the ceiling. They’re nearly done repainting the front room, and then that’ll be the last of it for the trailer. Already, it feels like there’s more sunlight coming in the windows, like the place has been given a new lease on life. And maybe that’s all he needed—not to move, not to build a new place, especially when he doesn’t want to do either of those things. Maybe all he needed was to slap a new coat of paint over the things he already has. Maybe that’ll be enough to jolt him out of this, without jolting him so bad that his brain explodes, because he feels like a ticking time bomb, feels like something has been building up inside of him, like the prison poisoned him in some way that he didn’t consent to, got into his blood and sits there, leeching out into the rest of his body. He used to like living out here in the woods, but now it feels like the trees are sneaking up on him, like the sun can’t cut through the windows the way it used to, like everything is dreary and dark and—

“I stopped into town to see about ordering some new furniture for this place.”

Clyde carefully cuts in on the corner. Glances to the side to see whether Jimmy’s caught up to him with the roller, and decides he’s caught up enough to justify continuing, so he starts cutting in on the next wall too. “You know you don’t need to do that,” he says, finally, after he realizes that Jimmy’s just going to wait him out. “Furniture in here is fine.”

“You don’t maybe want a nicer couch?” Jimmy asks. “Bigger bed?”

Clyde shrugs. “Paint’s enough,” he says.

(The paint has to be enough.)

He carefully coats his brush with more of it, takes a couple steps to the side, and starts cutting in again.

They paint in silence for most of the rest of the wall before Clyde sighs, makes an effort. “What was weird about it?”

“Okay, so, first of all,” Jimmy says, like the story’s been itching to boil out of him for the last twenty minutes. “I ain’t never been to that store before, guess it’s new or somethin’. Real pretty in there, tons of displays like those big city stores, gotta walk for a mile before you get to a thing you can actually purchase.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And the staff is real nice there—you know how it goes with most stores, takes a year and a day to find anybody to help you out with anything, most of the time you’re struggling to find anybody that knows anything.”

“The Lowe’s is real good, mostly,” Clyde says. To be fair, that’s probably because they know he’s Jimmy’s brother, and Mellie’s been there more recently than he has, and Mellie always has no problem getting help anywhere, but it’s fair for it to be said anyway, just so Jimmy knows it don’t go unappreciated.

“We have our days,” Jimmy says modestly. “Anyways, he asked a million questions—what kind of lifestyle did you lead, what kind of fabric did you like, what kind of interior decoratin’ was done in the rest of the room—”

“I really don’t need a couch,” Clyde repeats. “I like the one I have.” Sure, he had taken most of an afternoon stitching up a part where the seam had given up, and he’s run out of good sides on the cushions, so if anything gets spilled, that’s it for the cushions, but the couch is fine, just like Clyde is fine. He can poke the stuffing in on the corners when they come out. He can paint the walls when his brain starts feeling like it’s trying to work from underneath a whole whack of clouds.

“—and the thing is,” Jimmy continues, “that the couple of recommendations he had were real nice, and they were reasonably priced, and there’s warranty on it and everythin’, so I told him that you were fixin’ to stop by and check them out—”

“That’s a strange thing to say,” Clyde says. “I wasn’t aware I was planning on doing that.”

Jimmy stops, the roller sitting on the wall for a minute. “Now, look, Clyde,” he starts.

“Please don’t _look, Clyde_ me,” Clyde says, a bit plaintively. “You’re both fretting over me. You and Mellie. I am fine. I got just as much money out of that thing as you did, and just because I’ve opted to hang onto mine now instead of spending it don’t mean I’m…depressed, or nothing.” The word hangs in the air like a weight.

He shouldn’t have said it.

(He gave it a mouth.)

“Well,” Jimmy admits, “now that you’ve brought it up, yeah, me and Mellie were kind of wondering if you might be.”

Clyde scowls, turns back to his painting. There’s a drip of paint running down the wall, and he sticks his paintbrush back in the can, picks up a rag, carefully blots up the spot. He’s more careful than he needs to be, because it takes him a minute to—to stop being disappointed in himself for saying it in the first place. It’s just—Jimmy don’t mean no harm, but once they open that box, Clyde has no idea what’s gonna boil out of it, and that shit don’t go back in once it’s out. Maybe whatever’s lurking in there is something that none of them can contain.

“I’m fine,” Clyde says, after a long while. “An’ I’ll go look at that couch if you need me to look at that couch. Maybe I can get one that’d go with the new paint and all.”

“Yeah, maybe so,” Jimmy says, dunking his roller in paint and scrubbing it along the paint tray before going back to the wall again. “Might end up looking real nice, you never know. And you know Mellie ‘n me only want what’s best for you.”

“Yeah,” Clyde says. “I know.” He looks up at the ceiling, and then back at his paint brush.

They’re nearly done this section. There’s not much left now.

That’s good, then.

*

“Nothing different from normal,” he says. “I don’t want no changes.”

“I know, I know,” Mellie says dismissively. “Clyde, you ain’t wanted no changes since you were shorter than I am now. I ain’t about to throw something new at you. I’ll trim your ends, give you a deep condition, same as _I_ always do, and you’ll walk out of here looking the same as _you_ always do, no need to fret. Alright?”

“…alright,” Clyde says, and he settles back into the chair a bit, lets his shoulders relax. “I just wanted...”

“To be sure,” Mellie says softly. “I know, Clyde Logan. I know.” She tugs the comb through his hair a bit harder than what’s warranted, smooths it down with the flat of her hand after like an apology. “You’ve been weird since the speedway thing.”

Clyde winces. “Can we not?” he asks.

“Can we not,” she mimics, but her voice is softer than it usually is when she’s making fun of him. “Honestly, Clyde. Jimmy and I are both worried about you. And I was doing some thinking out loud—not about you in particular, mind—and Joe thinks—”

Clyde makes a face, watches in the mirror as Mellie rolls her eyes in response.

“He talks at me,” Mellie clarifies. “When he ain’t got nothing better to do.”

“He don’t got much going on,” Clyde allows.

“He buys me things,” Mellie says.

“You have enough money to buy yourself things,” Clyde says.

“And if Joe does the buying, then I have even more of it for myself,” Mellie says. “We ain’t here to talk about that, though.”

“We’re here for you to cut my hair,” Clyde says. “After hours. Like I like.”

“You used to come by during regular hours, same as everybody else,” Mellie says. “And you know I don’t mind opening up for you after hours, I’d do it in a heartbeat, but I think I’m right to be a bit worried.” She paces around him, tilts her head, considering. “Wanna test out a new deep conditioning thing I got from a supplier? He’s trying to convince me to buy a whack of it. That alright?”

“S’alright,” Clyde says. He closes his eyes a moment, tries to sort through all of his thoughts. The fear that’s been itching at the back of his brain, the part where maybe _this_ is how the curse is gonna hit him—the fear that maybe juvie wasn’t it, that Iraq wasn’t it, that the whole thing waited till he had a speck of fortune come his way via his brother, and then, boom, his entire life is set to explode, all at once—

The bell at the front door tinkles.

“We’re closed,” Mellie calls out.

“Aw, shit,” the guy at the front door said. “My mistake! I was just checking to see if you thought the bar out on the highway there might be a decent place to go, I’m still finding my way around here, but it looked a little charming in its own way and—hey, Clyde Logan. Good to see you!”

Clyde looks over. It’s the red—it’s Stensland. Clyde’s heart picks up, and he scrunches his eyes shut, because if he can’t get his head together to talk to his own baby sister, he sure as hell won’t be able to get his head together to talk to Stensland neither, not with the way he’s been feeling lately. Then he opens his eyes. “Hey,” he says.

Stensland grins. “Would you do me the honour of being my date tonight?”

There’s a blistering second where Clyde actually thinks that Stensland is talking to him—Stensland is certainly looking at him, and the pounding of Clyde’s heart sounds exactly like the ticking of a bomb, only he can’t see the fuse from here and has no idea how long he’s got left—but then Stensland turns, and tilts his head at Mellie, and it’s all Clyde can do not to exhale all the air out of his body in one long rush of relief, because the fuse is longer than he thought, maybe, and he’s still got time.

“Which one of us you askin’, Stensland,” Mellie drawls. “Because I’m working here, and I’m not in the market for a boyfriend at present.”

“Platonically,” Stensland says in a rush. “Sorry, I didn’t want you getting the wrong impression, I need to work on my communication skills, I’m mostly just looking to quench my thirst here…”

“...sure,” Mellie says, after a moment. “Why not. I can swing by around eight or so.”

“That’d be great,” Stensland says, with relief. “Hey, Clyde, did you want to come too?”

“I’m off work then,” Clyde says, but the tail end of that sentence doesn’t make its way out of his mouth—and he’s not entirely sure what it is, either, because he can’t recall anything in particular that he’s doing, except maybe moving all his furniture back now that the paint’s dried.

“You’ve got hours to think about it,” Stensland says, doing a funny little dance move as he heads backward toward the door. “Thanks for the help. Hopefully see you later, or maybe another time!”

The door jingles rather louder than it should when Stensland finally leaves, and that should be the end of it, and none of this should have been a big deal in the first place—but Mellie’s got his hair completely full of some sort of oil by the time Clyde’s heart finally slows.

By the time he gets home, he hasn’t got the energy to do much other than just take off his arm, and lie on the couch, which is still tugged back away from the wall.

The paint looks real pretty, though.

*

“It’s just,” Jimmy says. “You sure you’re making out alright?”

“’M fine,” Clyde says. “Work’s fine. Home’s fine. New paint ‘s good.”

“It’s not about the paint,” Jimmy says.

Clyde stops walking, gives Jimmy a minute to catch up, rest his knee. The fairground isn’t real busy right yet, so they’re not having to navigate through a bunch of people or nothing. “When’s Sadie’s thing again?”

“Closer to three,” Jimmy says.

Clyde looks at him, frowning. “You said—”

Jimmy puts up his hand. “I know, I know, I said one-thirty, I know.”

“Is this—”

“It’s an intervention, Clyde,” Mellie says, trotting up quick from the other side. “Sorry I’m late, Jimmy, got held up.”

Jimmy looks over. “Oh,” he says, “Sadie, you’re here too.”

“You’re ganging up on Uncle Clyde,” she says primly. “I wanted to come.”

“This is not necessary,” Clyde says, but he wonders if maybe it is, a little bit, based on the way everybody’s faces look. He looks around. “Can we at least,” he starts—and then he stops, because if all of them think it’s this important, he should just...stand here, and let it get done. “Go ahead,” he says.

“You’re isolated,” Jimmy says bluntly. “And we’re worried about you. I know us Logans don’t have an awful lot…” He glances down at Sadie, and frowns a little, closes his mouth, gets that furrow in his brow he gets when he’s thinking about something before he says it.

(Clyde considers the merits of leaving—but even if Jimmy won’t catch up with him, Mellie, even in four inch spike heels, will, and either way, it ain’t polite, even if he don’t want to have this conversation in the first place.)

“I know opportunities don’t always come—”

“It’s bad luck,” Clyde says flatly. His thumb goes to the ring on his left hand, touches the metal comfortingly, in taps of three. One-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three. “It was bound to catch me at some point.”

“How do you mean?” Jimmy asks.

“Lots of people are depressed,” Sadie says. “I saw it on tv. There was a doc-u-men-ary on it. It don’t mean nothing, though. It’s just a thing that happens.”

Clyde looks away, doesn’t say nothing.

“This about the curse?” Jimmy asks gruffly.

“Might be,” Clyde allows.

“You don’t maybe just wanna talk to Sylvie?” Mellie asks. “She’d see you without making a thing of it.”

“The money’s s’posed to make things easier,” Clyde says finally.

“And?” Mellie asks.

“It ain’t.”

Jimmy hugs him, then. Bear hug, both arms, and Clyde just kind of—stands there, for a second, before relaxing into it, letting Jimmy breathe into his neck.

“Don’t be a meathead,” Jimmy mutters, finally, pulling away and stepping back. “We ain’t gonna abandon you just cuz you’re going through a thing.”

“I can take your share of the money if that’s what’s causing the problem,” Mellie drawls, but when Clyde looks at her, her face is damn serious, so he looks away again.

“I’ll consider it,” Clyde says—and that’s enough to diffuse some of the tension, enough that Mellie tosses her hair and Jimmy looks him in the eye again, and Sadie—well, Sadie’s been watching him the entire time, and is still watching him now, but it feels a bit less careful than it did, and that’s something. “You still got that barbeque next week, Mellie?”

“We might still be going when you’re done work,” she says.

“I can try and move my shift,” Clyde says. “If you don’t mind having me there.”

“Clyde Logan, I would never mind,” she says. “You come on by whenever you like, and I don’t care if you feel like socializing or just sitting, you’re still welcome.”

“I can teach you to knit,” Sadie offers. “I’m learning.”

“I think my party’s a bit late for you,” Mellie says gently.

“We can have a separate knitting thing, if you want,” Clyde says. “Might be nice.” And the thing is—it doesn’t fill him with skin-crawling dread, not like it would have if she’d proposed the idea earlier in the week. And maybe, if he’s gonna keep waking up at five in the morning, with nothing else to do, maybe he can knit some things. Because if everybody’s right—if depression is what this is, and if naming the thing is making it real—this might take a while.

“Sorry I lied about the start time,” Jimmy mutters. “Shouldn’t have done that.”

“It’s fine,” Clyde says. “It’s been talked about now.” He looks down to where Sadie is still hovering around his legs. “And I’ll stay to watch you race, alright?”

“I’ll be done way before the fireworks,” Sadie says. “I checked. They ain’t on till it’s dark out.”

Clyde nods, because his voice has gone all weird on him, suddenly.

“Thanks, Uncle Clyde,” Sadie says. She reaches up with her little fist, raps her knuckles against his.

“Y’all go on ahead,” he says, finally. “I’ll catch up in a minute.”

Mellie puts her hand on his shoulder as she passes by him.

He realizes after they’ve all walked off that it’s the first time anyone has touched him in a long while, and maybe there’s something to them thinking he’s been isolating himself.

Maybe he has.

Maybe it ain’t good for him.

*

It all goes to shit anyways. He gets caught up in being close to people, in socializing with everybody, in the realisation that they won’t all hang him out to dry if he’s a bit quieter than usual, or if it takes him a minute longer to say something. By the time he heads out to the parking lot, it’s dark out, and he’s only halfway to his car when the fireworks start going off.

The whistle gets him first, that high-pitched whine right before the fireworks start going off, and Clyde full-out forgets for a minute, sticks his mechanical hand over one ear and his flesh hand over the other, hikes his shoulders up around his ears. It doesn’t do anything because he still flinches, drops into a crouch on the gravel.

By the time he comes back to himself, he’s out the back end of the parking lot and about twenty minutes into the bush, and part of him figures he should stop himself from doing whatever he’s doing, and the rest of him figures maybe he should just let it happen, because at least everybody else is watching the fireworks and—

“Shit, fook!” somebody exclaims.

—there’s a flashlight shining right in his face, and Clyde brings up his mechanical hand to shield them, and then the light goes away, and there’s a hand on his arm.

“Sorry about the light there, you absolutely scared the bejeezus out of me…are you alright?”

Clyde squints into the sudden darkness, his vision shot to hell for a moment till his eyes adjust. His heart is pounding and his mouth is dry and there’s a moment where he’s not actually sure where he is—and then everything settles. He’s in Boone County, out in the trees back behind the fairground, and Stensland is standing in front of him, with a miner’s light dangling around his neck, illuminating the socks he’s wearing with his flip-flops.

“Hey,” Stensland says, leaning in close to him, hand still on Clyde’s elbow. “You alright? You look kinda pasty.”

“Can’t stay,” Clyde mutters. He should shrug off Stensland’s hand—it’s on his right elbow, even, directly on his bare skin. “’S not safe.”

(He should shrug it off, but he doesn’t.)

Stensland’s eyes, bloodshot as they are, go wide. “Are there gators here? Fucking christ, I should have known.”

“We don’t have—” Clyde starts—and then there’s a whistle behind him, and he twitches forward, shoulders going up around his ears, tensing, waiting for it—there, pop pop pop, and his brain is echoing with explosions and there’s sand in his eyes and wind tearing at his clothes and all he sees up above him is the clear blue sky of the Iraqi desert and—he opens his eyes, and Stensland is still staring at him, still standing in close to Clyde, still just—there.

“I should go,” Clyde mutters.

“Why?” Stensland asks. “I mean, you were coming out here for a reason, I’m sure, I can go if you want.”

“You don’t need to go,” Clyde says. “I’m just…I’m a big guy.”

“You are,” Stensland agrees.

“Fireworks…make me jumpy. People get nervous. I shouldn’t…be around people.”

Stensland cocks his head, looking like a particularly bed-headed puppy. “I mean,” he says. “If you don’t wanna be alone on account of the fireworks…I’m way too high to get nervous about anything right now, you can stay here with me, I’ll keep you company. I brought a blanket and and a battery-powered lantern and snacks and everything, and I promise I’m too baked to do so much as flinch. Also, there’s a pond out here. I’m sure you know that already.”

Clyde blinks, because there ain’t a pond here, and then looks to where Stensland is pointing—and, sure enough, there’s a blanket laid out on the grass, right by the low spot where the water collects when it’s been a wet year, which is maybe what’s called a pond where Stensland comes from, instead of a slough like it is here.

“…you can’t see the fireworks from here,” Clyde says, because he’s still getting around Stensland romanticizing the low spot where the run-off collects.

“Eh,” Stensland says. “I’ve been to Burning Man, fireworks aren’t really a thing for me anymore, you know? I came out here to get high and look at the water and the stars and the moon and such, and I thought maybe…if you just wanted to stay out here, with me, you could do that. Like I said, I’m about stoned out for the evening, and I won’t so much as move even if you’re twitchy. Also, I’ve got more in my pocket if that’s a thing that you use to manage your mental quirks, as it were.”

Clyde shakes his head. He should go. He should go, because if the PTSD ain’t a problem, then the arm will be, and if the arm ain’t, then it’ll just be something else, it’ll just be—if it ain’t one thing, it’ll be another, is all. Stensland’s probably noticed Clyde gawking at him all the time anyways, and Clyde doesn’t feel up to having that conversation right now.

“Not that your mental stuff is any of my business,” Stensland says rapidly. “It’s just—it doesn’t matter to me at all—maybe I should just go? I can come back later and pick up the blanket, or something, it’s pretty much worn right through anyways—”

“It’s a nice blanket,” Clyde says.

Stensland brightens, and then scrunches his nose. “Aw, hell, you’re just saying that.” He glances down at it. “I know it’s a little gay, being pink and all, but, you know, so am I, a little bit gay, that is, so I figure that works out for both of us, only eventually the damn thing is going to fall apart if I keep hauling it around and setting it down on, like, twigs and stones and all that kind of stuff, the back’s starting to wear off of it—”

Clyde blinks at him.

“—one of the few things I brought with me when I moved, the company looked after most of my expenses but I was renting before—I’m renting now, too, it’s just that they furnished the place from floor models, so it’s actually much classier looking, I’m mostly just keeping this one because it’ll fall apart eventually but it was nice to have something consistent between here and there—”

Fireworks, again, from behind them, and Clyde twitches forward, grabs at Stensland’s elbow with his right hand and Stensland—doesn’t pull back, just braces himself and leans into it, brings his hand up and touches Clyde on both forearms at once, the mechanical one and the flesh one both, and just kind of—leans at him. Even goes so far as to rise up on his toes a bit, stick his slightly damp forehead against Clyde’s and press against him.

“This okay?” Stensland asks. His breath smells like pastries and stale pot smoke.

“S’okay,” Clyde mutters. “I usually—go home before the fireworks start. Got caught up with my family.”

“Ah, yeah,” Stensland says. “You seem like a pretty close-knit bunch, I admire that. Here, come sit down, if you’re still okay with staying a minute.”

Clyde blinks at him again, watches as Stensland steps back, slides his hands down both Clyde’s forearms, and then grips his hands, flesh and mechanical both, and tugs him toward the blanket.

“Here,” Stensland says, staring back behind over Clyde’s shoulder. “Come on, come on, they’re just about to—”

Clyde is just settling onto the blanket when the next pop-bang of fireworks starts happening, these ones louder than the last—they must be getting on their way to the big finale—except this time, Stensland’s hand is splayed in the middle of his back, and Stensland’s voice is in his ear.

“Did you want to put your head between your knees? I’m not sure as that’s going to help anything, really, but it might muffle the sounds a bit—I wasn’t thinking, I guess I maybe should have had us sit right on the ground, we could have hid under the blanket like it’s a blanket fort or something, did you guys used to do that when you were kids? I mostly just hid under tables because I was always in places I wasn’t supposed to be, and tables were pretty easy to hide under until I started hitting my growth spurt—I was all legs, then, and it was harder to hide, though I stayed skinny, I’m sure you had a hell of a time—okay, that was a pretty loud one, they’ve gotta be close to being done here, it’s a bit excessive! D’ya think I can just hum over it? I can’t hum louder than the noises, but maybe I can, just, like.” He hums a couple of bars of something, lyrical and meandering, then trickles off into silence that should feel awkward, but doesn’t.

“Thanks,” Clyde says softly. His heart is still racketing around in his ears like a trapped rabbit. He wants to look up—figures it might be a little easier if he’s looking at Stensland, like maybe that might calm him down a bit—but he’s worried about what his face is going to do if he does, so maybe it’s easier if he just—doesn’t. If he just doesn’t do anything at all, if he just—keeps his head between his knees, keeps breathing and waiting and hoping that there aren’t any more fireworks, that the thing in his head stays just as quiet as the air around them is right now, because that would help him, that would help him a lot.

“You know,” Stensland says from beside him. “Your family’s really nice. They are very sincere and honest in their affection for you. Your brother says that you’re fiercely loyal, and that you deserve nice things but you never ask for them for yourself. Your niece says that you used to pick her up from school sometimes when Jimmy was on shift, and always let her climb all the tallest trees. Your sister says you never tattled on her when she used to sneak out at night, though you didn’t do her homework for her when she felt awful the next day either. And I just kept thinking—wow, I want to know this guy. Only I never really seemed to be able to find a minute to talk to you, and then I felt kind of like a wanker every time I tried, and I just about fell over when I realized it was you coming over here, and this feels a little bit like a second chance, except I think realistically I’m on about my fifth chance right now, and—please tell me that I’m not being horribly embarrassing, or at least if I am, that you don’t mind it much, that’s kind of who I am as a person, I’ve been doing all these self-help books but they’ve mostly just made me realize I’m sort of like—not so much a condor, maybe, but one of those weird little roosters with the funny heads, where that’s just kind of innate, the weirdness, that is but they’re really good in their niche, they just gotta figure out what their—you’re staring a bit, Clyde.”

“Am I?” Clyde asks.

“Yeah,” Stensland breathes, voice ghosting out of his lips, which are ever-so-slightly parted, and quite gorgeous.

Clyde leans in and kisses him. Stensland’s lips are just as soft as Clyde had been imagining, and the sensuality of it sends little shivers down his spine.

“Oh,” Stensland murmurs against his mouth. “That why you were staring?”

“Yeah,” Clyde says.

“ _Oh_ ,” Stensland says fervently, and then he leans into it, kisses Clyde back with a level of passion that Clyde hadn’t expected.

It’s so good. Clyde feels warm all over, feels the fingers of his mechanical hand twitching against his leg. Stensland kisses like he knows what he’s doing, and Clyde’s heart is picking right up again, only it’s not like any kind of a panic this time, it’s like—sheer excitement and adrenaline, finally having something he’s wanted a while, finally having—

“Thank you,” Stensland says, lips moving against Clyde’s.

Clyde’s breath catches in his chest a little, like he’s in free fall. And it’s not like Clyde means to do it on purpose, but Stensland’s lips were moving from talking, and Clyde’s tongue just kind of—slides right in there.

The inside of Stensland’s mouth is bone-dry, and it’s an odd feeling against Clyde’s tongue, but he wants more of it, he wants more of this, always, he wants to pull Stensland in close to him, wants to keep kissing Stensland for the rest of his life, enjoy this for what it is as well as what it might be, if—

A distant cheer erupts from the fairgrounds, and after that, a last explosion of fireworks. Clyde stiffens, all his muscles tightening at once—and then Stensland’s hand is on the back of his neck, and Stensland’s forehead is pressed back against his again.

“I gotcha,” Stensland murmurs against Clyde’s lips. “I’m here. I think that’s the last of it. It’s just you and me. Everything’s going to be okay, I’ve got you.”

Clyde takes a deep, shuddering breath, lets his head fall forward until it rests against Stensland’s shoulder. Tries to relax, to focus on Stensland’s sweaty palm on the back of his neck, Stensland’s accent drifting into his ear. Clyde counts his breaths, counts the stitches in the patchwork covering the blanket they’re both sitting on, lets his breath slow down, and eventually, everything just kind of...retreats a bit.

“Hey, uh. Clyde,” Stensland says.

“Yeah?”

“I really hate to ask this, but. Do I need to go? Would you rather have some space?”

Clyde considers it, for a moment. Considers the silence of the trees, now that the fireworks have calmed down, the slight stench of the stagnant water. What he’d be doing if he was at home—nothing—with what he’d be doing if he was alone—still nothing—against what he’s doing now—which is not nothing. Considers the pressure of Stensland’s hand on his back, and the way Stensland’s hair floofs up around his face, and the slight smell of his sweat on account of he’s wearing long sleeves and a polyester vest again.

“...you can stay,” Clyde says. “If you want.”

Stensland shifts next to him, settles in on the blanket. “I think I’d like to,” he says. “Thanks for not minding.”

“Same,” Clyde says. “That was a nice first kiss,” he says, after a moment. “Thank you for that.”

“Aw,” Stensland says. “We’ve got good chemistry, is all. I’d like to—” And then he takes a deep breath, exhales it in a controlled fashion like it’s a habit that Clyde doesn’t recognize yet, but wants to. “We’ve got good chemistry,” he repeats. “I have a couple more deep-fried Mars bars, if you want. Are you thirsty? I have strawberry milk too.”

“If you’re offering, I’ll take you up on that,” Clyde says.

Stensland grins at him. “Oh, I’m offering,” he says. “I figure I might like to offer you a lot of things, but we can talk about that later.” He pats Clyde reassuringly on the bicep. “Don’t go anywhere,” he jokes. “It’s just I can’t reach the food from here, it’s at the other end of the blanket.”

Clyde watches him shuffle down to the end of the blanket, pop open a brand-new little cooler, and start rooting around inside it. The back of Stensland’s neck looks a little flushed, and Clyde thinks he might want to put his hand there, see how hot Stensland’s skin is under his palm.

By all rights, it should have been an awful day. But it don’t feel that way right now, watching Stensland rummage through his cooler, talk to the inanimate objects he has stashed inside it. It somehow feels, almost, like nothing bad has happened the entire day, like ending up sharing a pink blanket and a first kiss with Stensland is maybe everything he ever needed in his entire life.

And the thing is...Clyde doesn’t know how long the fuse is. He’s maybe never known how long the fuse is. But he’s pretty confident that no matter how long the fuse is, it ain’t lit right now, and for tonight?

For tonight, that’s enough.

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

>  **Chapter Notes:** war imagery as a metaphor for mental illness | Clyde in denial about his depression | one acute instance of PTSD brought on by fireworks | series-typical use of pot
> 
> **End Notes:** Well, there you have it. My very first foray into the kylux adjacents that I've enjoyed for so long. I hope you enjoy this fic too! I did make it a series, because I know there will be more installments (after all, they just barely got going!), but since this work is complete in and of itself and I don't know when another installment is coming, I've left it as a series rather than an one-ended chaptered fic.
> 
> **Thank you:** I owe my thanks to a number of people for this fic. Firstly, to [forautumniam](https://twitter.com/forautumniam), who beta-read the fic, helped me excise the Kylo from my Clyde, and talked me through some characterization dilemmas I was having. Secondly, as always, to [Deadsy](https://twitter.com/deadsy_art), who has seen these movies with me multiple times, and also who spent the entirely of last night helping me tweak Stensland, and also the entire fic, and also just my life in general. And, thirdly, to [Rain](https://twitter.com/RainySidewalk), whose notes from Logan Lucky and Crash Pad I referred to frequently throughout.
> 
> As always, any mistakes I've made in the above are my own.
> 
> I can be found on the following platforms: [twitter](https://twitter.com/heyktula), [dreamwidth](https://ktula.dreamwidth.org/), [pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.io/ktula), and [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/heyktula).
> 
> **EDIT:** And, hey, if fic breakdowns are your kind of thing--there's a fic breakdown for Fifth Chance up on [my Dreamwidth](https://ktula.dreamwidth.org/2697.html) now!


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